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‌CHAPTER 1

10 December 1975 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[To the leader of the Tathata group (Unconditional Acceptance Seminar)]

It has to be remembered that the leader is not, in fact, a manipulator. He should not be. If you manipulate, then it is something from the mind, and that which comes from the mind cannot go deeper than the mind. So the leader has to be open to the beyond.

In the beginning the mind will be there. By and by lose it so you are possessed. That’s the right word – you are possessed. Then you are no longer there. Something greater than you, something bigger than you, has taken possession. Then you do something, but you are not the doer; then something happens, but you are simply a witness to it. Then the leader is lost, and once the leader is lost, the real leader enters in. When the leader is no longer there then you become part of the group. Then those who are being led by you are not separate; no duality exists. Once the leader is possessed, the duality disappears. Then the teacher and the taught are one. The physician and the patient are one. Only then, and only then, healing is possible. And it is not only that you are healing them; you are also being healed through the process.

Until a group becomes an enrichment to the leader also, how can it be enriching to those who are being led? Unless you grow through it, how can you help others to grow? So be possessed. And that is one of the most difficult things, mm? The mind wants to manipulate, control, move on a fixed pattern. You can move on a fixed pattern, but then nothing special will ever happen. People may be helped, they may attain something through it, but the whole thing will remain on the surface, and technological. Love will be missing. And God will not be there. So allow yourself to be possessed.

You can do this: whenever you start the group, close your eyes and allow your whole group to surround you. Let them hold hands and start by a prayer. The prayer should be silent, just an opening – that God should possess you and you should not in any way be manipulating or controlling

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others. And you withdraw, and immediately you will see an energy entering, and there will be a tremendous change, an infinite power, inexhaustible. Allow it.

Then each group will be a new opening, a new door, a new experience. You have never been there before, it is a new space – not only for those you are leading, but for you also. There will be many surprises. And unless it happens, sooner or later the leader is bound to become dull and bored – because it is a repetition. The members will be changing; they will be new again and again. For them it may be new, but for you it becomes just the old pattern. Never make it that way. This is possible only if you become possessed and you allow the infinite energy to move. It needs trust, it needs dying of the ego.

So remember me. Each time you start the group, remember me – and leave it to me. You simply become a vehicle and the possibility is tremendous. Then you will be more able to help people because you are not there, so nobody hinders. When the leader is there, the led also feels a resistance – the ego fight enters. When you are not there, things become very simple and easy. So this has been good. But always remember – by and by you remove yourself.

And then you become a worthy vessel of many many things.

[The group leader says: I’ve always had a problem with patience and rue been impatient a lot. Sometimes I feel it is good because I get moving, sometimes I feel it hinders me being impatient.]

Be patient with your impatience. If it is there, it is there. Don’t create a problem out of it, accept it. That too is an ego game – that you should not be impatient. Why? If one is, one is! Relax into it, use it. This is my understanding: that everything can be used, everything can become creative.

So it is not a question of whether impatience should be there or not. The question is how to use it if it is there, and it *it is not there, then how to use the absence. Both can be used. Impatience simply shows energy – energy which is seeking pathways, energy which doesn’t know what to do, energy which is so much that it is overflowing. Don’t take a negative attitude about it – nothing is wrong in it. Be impatient and very patient. Allow it, use it, and soon you will see that even impatience has become a flowering.

Impatience can become an intensity, and it is if you take it rightly. It is a deep concern. When you are working on somebody and you are impatient, it simply shows that you love, that you are concerned, that you don’t want to waste time and energy.… It shows that although you know everything is close by, this man is still missing. Jesus is impatient, very impatient, and that is the source of his tremendous attraction. Use impatience – it is energy, it is vitality.

Never label things negatively. If anger is there, use it be angry lovingly. And it is not a contradiction. It looks, appears, paradoxical, but it is not – in existence it isn’t. In fact in existence you are only angry when you love someone. If I love you, care about you, sometimes I will have to be angry. But behind that anger there will be love. Behind the curtain, love will be hiding. Anything else?

[The group leader answers: Yes. I’ve felt more surrendered to you since I’ve been here... ]

Mm mm, every day you will feel it more and more, because it is a journey that starts but never ends. When you say you are surrendered to me it is just a beginning. And it is always a beginning,

because more and more is possible. So infinitely more is possible than you can conceive. Every time you come you will feel more and more surrendered. The more you surrender, the more you will feel capable of surrendering.

One learns through doing – there is no other way. You go to the river and start to learn swimming. The more you swim, the more you know. Surrender is moving into the depth of consciousness, it is a swimming. The more you do, the more you know. The more you know, the more adventures will open to you, and the more challenges there will be. And I will be giving more and more challenges to you.

[The group leader says: So you want me to go home at the end of these three months] I want you to go home, mm? I would like a few people to continuously come and go.

Whenever you feel a little tired, come back. Whenever you feel you will need a little nourishment, come back. Whenever you feel you have been missing me, come back. Feed on me – and go back...

[The assistant leader says the group was better, more intense than the previous one.]

Work as if you are almost mad. As I feel it, you still hold much, you don’t go into it totally, and you remain on the periphery. You always keep a space where you can withdraw if things become too much. Whenever you move, always break the bridges that you have crossed so there is no possibility of moving back. When you have reached a height, throw the ladder. So either you have to go ahead or you have to die, but you cannot go back Never create the situation that whenever you want, you can withdraw within yourself. No, then you will not become a real leader – and I would like you to become one.

To be an assistant is one thing, because you work like a shadow, and the responsibility is not on you. But once you become a leader, the whole responsibility is on you – and then just half/half won’t help. Explode, and explode one hundred percent. Just by your explosion people will be helped. When a group sees that you are half-hearted, they will not even be half-hearted. They will only be twenty-five percent if you are fifty percent. The group will go only half the limit that the leader goes. You have to boil one hundred percent so you start evaporating. Only then will they have courage to move with you.

The whole point of all therapies, of all group processes, is to create a situation where people can dare – that’s all. How you create that is irrelevant. You give them an impetus and a challenge. You open an abyss before them, and you tempt them to jump. The group is needed because when they are alone they will never dare, they will be much too afraid.

But when they see that one can jump and still be alive – and not only that, but more alive than ever; when they see that the abyss is not death but life abundant; when they see that one who has opened has gained something, has not lost anything, but has become richer and more vital – then they start daring. One dares and another follows, then somebody else, and then it becomes a simple thing, a very simple phenomenon. But then you have to be courageous yourself. So next group, you dare as much as you can. And there is no excess in it. Whatsoever you do will be always less than can be done.

[A group member says he is more open now, and his emotions are going to the extremes very often]

Allow them, because your whole life you have been suppressing them. So allow them and soon the extremities will disappear. It is as if somebody has been fasting for a few days and then you invite him for a feast. He goes on and on eating, and he eats too much – to the point where he starts vomiting. But this cannot continue every day. If he is allowed to eat, soon things will settle.

The whole of humanity exists starved, starved of a thousand and one things. Love has not been allowed; sex has not been allowed; anger has not been allowed. Laughter has not been allowed and crying has not been allowed. Man is crippled so much that it is a sheer miracle he continues to exist. Why isn’t every man mad? – that is a very pertinent question. The question is not why a few people are mad, but why everybody is not mad. The whole situation is such that when you laugh for the first time after many years, or even after many lives, the laughter goes to the very extreme. Repressed so long, it explodes. If you cry and weep, then the tears go on and on, and there seems to be no end to it. But allow it and soon things will settle, because to be extreme is not the way of nature.

The way of nature is exactly the middle, the golden mean. Nature always balances. But if things are suppressed, the mind starts creating an imbalance, and to balance it you have to move to the other extreme. So for a few days, it may not be for long, for a few days, allow whatsoever happens and be in it. And don’t try to think of ideals. For example, if you are crying and weeping and tears are coming, don’t ask yourself what people will think. They have been telling you from the very childhood not to be a sissy, be a man; that this is okay for girls, but not for boys; be hard and a toughy.

So one becomes a toughy and then loses the tender heart. One loses the quality of crying which is tremendously beautiful. Eyes which cannot cry, cannot know what poetry is; and a heart which cannot weep, cannot know what mystery is. And if you cannot weep, you cannot laugh – they go together, as two aspects of one coin. So if you suppress crying and weeping, you will suppress laughter. At the most you smile – and that smile also seems to be painted, posed, manipulated, as if you are doing something. It is not like a flower that is coming from within and is opening. It is something forced from the outside, a head thing.

In this world you are not here to fulfill anybody’s expectations. The one responsibility, and the only responsibility, is to become yourself, to realise who you are. And that is possible only if you realise all the potentialities that you carry within – unrepressed, open, floating.

Do something right now... close your eyes, and allow something that you have never allowed before.… [Osho shines his torch on him] Good, mm? Very good. For three weeks be completely crazy, and after three weeks things will balance by themselves. The experience has been good. You could at least do something. (Osho smiled at him warmly.) Good...

[A group member says he is pretty shaken up ‘I had a strong experience of the limitations I was casing myself in.’]

(after a few seconds pause) You carry a very strong armour around you. But it is good that you are becoming aware. It is just an armour, it is not clinging to you. You are clinging to it, so when you become aware, you can simply drop it. The armour is dead. If you don’t carry it, it will disappear. Not only are you carrying it, but nourishing and feeding it continuously.

But this is how civilization is – in a very neurotic state. Civilization is a neurosis, and it pays – that’s why we have decided to be neurotic. But by and by as man is becoming more aware, it is becoming more and more clear that the affair is too costly. It gives something, but it takes more than it gives. It gives you many things, but it takes the inner soul. It gives you a better standard of life, but it kills you.

Every child is fluid, he has no frozen parts in him; the whole body is one organic unity. The head is not important and the feet are not unimportant. In fact, division doesn’t exist; there are no demarcations. But by and by demarcations start coming up. Then the head becomes the master, the boss, and the whole body is divided into parts. A few parts are accepted by the society and a few parts are not. A few parts are dangerous for the society and have to be almost destroyed. That creates the whole problem.

So you have to watch where you feel limitations in the body. Where exactly did you become aware that there were more limitations – in the legs?

[He answers in the legs, neck, chest and throat]

Just do three things. One: walking or sitting, or whenever you are not doing anything, exhale deeply. The emphasis should be on exhalation, not on inhalation. So exhale deeply – as much air as you can throw out, throw and exhale by the mouth. But do it slowly so it takes time; the longer it takes the better, because then it goes deeper. When all the air inside the body is thrown out, then the body inhales. Don’t you inhale. Exhalation should be slow and deep, inhalation should be fast. This will change the armour near the chest, and that will change your throat too.

Second thing: if you can start a little running that will be helpful. Not many miles, just one mile will do. Just visualise that a load is disappearing from the legs, as if it is falling. Legs carry the armour if your freedom has been restricted too much; if you have been told to do this and not to do that; to be this and not to be that; to go here and not to go there. So you start running, mm? And while running, also put more attention on exhalation. Once you regain your legs, and their fluidity, you will have a tremendous energy flow.

The third thing: in the night when you go to sleep, take off your clothes, and while taking them off, just imagine that you are not only taking off your clothes, you are taking off your armour too. Actually do it. Take it off and have a good deep breath – and then go to sleep as if unarmoured, with nothing on the body and no restriction. In three weeks tell me how it is going. It has been good.Osho

turned to a sannyasin who was training in Tathata and asked him how it was going. [Another group member says he had difficulty with the structure]

In fact there is no structure in it. The structure is just formal. Deep down, a very unstructured flow is the real thing. The structure is not more than a container; don’t pay much attention to it, look at the content.

The structure is just to support that which is not structured. So everything that is unstructured will need a structure around it. It is just like a scaffold – it helps the building to be raised. Once the building is ready you can throw the scaffolding – there is no need for it. So once somebody has

passed through an experience, and has come to know the unstructured, the unconditional, then there is no point in having a structure. He knows, he understands that the structure was just to help. Now he can burn the scriptures, now there is no discipline. But people who have attained to a state of no discipline still follow the discipline – just for those who cannot understand the undisciplined yet.

It is said about Bodhidharma, who introduced Zen into Japan and China, that when he became enlightened he continued meditating. Some of his disciples asked,‘Why do you meditate? You have attained.’

He said,‘Because of you. Unless I meditate, you will think, “What is the point of meditating? The master is not meditating, so we can leave it.” But it will be dangerous for you. For me there is no point now; I simply sit so that I can help you to sit.’

Bud&a said to his disciples,‘When you become enlightened, don’t throw the discipline away, because there are many foolish people around thinking that discipline is not needed. They will never enter discipline and they will be destroyed.’

All I am doing here, or allowing to be done here, is basically unstructured, but the structure is needed. It is just a superficial need. Good, this has been a good understanding.

[A GROUP MEMBER SAYS HE CAN’T REALLY TELL WHAT’S HAPPENING]

In fact, whenever it is so, whenever something is going on, it is very difficult to say; it is very elusive. It is not a particular thing, it is more like a climate that surrounds, a milieu. It is like a fragrance that you recognise, and yet you don’t recognise. There are moments when clarity comes, and there are moments when there are again clouds and all clarity is gone. In the moments of clarity, you think you can say what is happening, but when those moments are gone you cannot recapture it. And the thing is so big that you can cry, or laugh, or dance – but you cannot say.

That’s why in Zen, when the master gives a koan to meditate upon, he waits for the disciple to someday come and act what he has experienced. If he keeps on coming and talking, whatsoever he says is rejected. Sometimes he has not said anything and the master says,‘Don’t say it; it is wrong’ – and he had not said anything! The master waits for the moment when the disciple will show it, not say it.

So whenever something real happens, you can show it, but you cannot say it. The next time when you feel, you can come and dance, or you can sing a song, or anything. Or you can just sit silently, not saying anything. I will understand. Just trying to find the words is always difficult: the word is so small, the experience so big. It cannot be confined to words.

But good. When something happens which you cannot say, very good.

[A group member says: I cried really deeply. I rejected at first that the past was still part of me, then I realised that it was, and I began feeling better. It has given me a lot of energy]

Much energy is wasted in fighting with oneself; in rejecting, in condemning. Much energy is wasted. If you start accepting yourself, you become a reservoir of energy because then the conflict ceases;

then there is no civil war; then you are one piece. Much energy is preserved, and that overflowing energy is creativity. A person who is in conflict with himself can never be creative. He is destructive, he is destroying himself, and through himself he will destroy others also. All his relationships will be poisoned.

The most basic and the most fundamental commandment is to love oneself. I don’t say only accept, because that word is not enough – you can accept and you may not love. You may accept, because what can be done? – you are in a deep helplessness, but that is not acceptance. Unless you accept yourself as a blessing, unless you accept and welcome yourself, unless you accept yourself in deep gratitude, unless you love yourself, you will never become an overflowing energy. Then the energy can flow in song, in dance, in painting. A thousand and one ways of creativity can be found; or it can simply flow in deep silence. And whomsoever comes in contact with that deep silence will be transformed and will hear for the first time the music which is celestial. So not only accept, but accept with deep gratitude. Be thankful that God has made you you, and not anybody else.

Everybody has a unique function to fulfill, that’s why he exists. And when I say everybody, I mean everybody. A Judas is as much needed as a Jesus. Without Judas, Jesus will be poorer; something will be missing in the story. So Jesus has to be thankful to Judas also. Not only accept yourself, but accept everybody else as he is. God knows better.

I have heard a story about Byazid, a sufi mystic. He was passing on a road with his disciples and he saw a very beautiful red stone by the side of the path. He took it up, brooded for a moment, then replaced it. The disciples asked,‘What are you doing? You took a rock and then you replaced it.’

He said,‘God must have had some function for it, that’s why it is there. Who am I to change it, to change its place I was just going to commit a sin. The beauty of the stone tempted me, but just in time I remembered God. It must be there, it must be needed there.’

When you accept yourself, suddenly you accept everybody. A person who rejects himself rejects the whole world. A person who rejects himself cannot accept God. How can you accept God who made you? The moment you accept yourself, everything is accepted. Then everything is as it should be. Then there is no difference -between should be and is. Then the should is ‘is’. And suddenly a celebration arises. So accept it.

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